What on earth is the 'Sunk Costs Fallacy'?

Don't you just love it when something you didn't know had a name... has a name?

I've been reading an intriguing book called Think Like a Freak: Secrets of the Rogue Economist from those Superfreakonomics chaps and of the many interesting points I picked up, the one that pleased me most was finding out about the 'sunk cost fallacy'. Sunk costs are the amount of time, energy and resources you have invested in an enterprise. The danger, or the fallacy, is that because you have spent these costs you must continue even if you are flogging a dead horse* by doing so. You don't want to end up losing all that money and effort over nothing, do you? 

Good examples of this are ordering too much food and feeling you have to eat it to 'get your money's worth' or keeping things you don't want or need because they were expensive.

I, and a small circle of friends, have been referring to this as 'the queue at the Blue John Mines' after a 1990's bank holiday trip spent in a long line whilst disputing whether to stay because we'd already invested hours in the trip or abandon the whole idea and recoup what was left of the day. The trouble with 'the queue at the Blue John Mines' is that it means nothing to everyone else in the world. (They weren't even mines, it turns out, but a cavern, but we didn't wait to find out as it happens.)

The other things in the book that really struck me include: the importance of admitting you don't know, defining the problem properly before trying to solve it, and the importance of premortems - imagining your plans going wrong and asking what would have been most likely to cause it. Also - and this is where the sunk costs fallacy comes in - the importance of quitting before you waste more time and energy going down a wrong path. 

There's a much longer piece about the sunk cost fallacy on You're Not so Smart... we all do it all the time!

* No dead horses were hurt in the making of this blog

Brought down to size

I was brought back to earth this week after I've been insufferably full of myself lately. I'm interested in other people's views...

I had my first '1 star' review on Amazon. A Mrs E Carlill from Stroud thought I was 'A bit odd'. No shit, Sherlock. The words 'unsettling', 'dark underbelly' and 'shaky ground' appear in my own description of it. Previous reviews use 'quirky' and 'twisted. But Mrs Carlill went for it anyway.

Now, am I alone in thinking that if something is adequately described, well written and  absolutely free it is entirely unreasonable to just give it one star?  What score would she give something that mis-represents itself, is full of typos and causes serious offense? I'm not losing sleep over it: it still averages 4.5 stars and her review is more about her own choices and tastes than my work, but is it fair to be quite so damning?

If something isn't to your taste, do YOU put the boot in or just walk away?

A curate's egg

This is not about eggs, or, indeed curates.*  It's about my first 'proper' review, which was, sadly, 'mixed'.

My feelings about it are mixed too.  A proper paid gig at a reputable poetry night at Liverpool's The Bluecoat arts centre is not to be sniffed at, and a review of any sort is a novelty in the easy-come, easy-go world of open mic nights.

I have my share of rejections and am generally not hurt or angered by them despite their implied criticism of or distaste for my work. But a review is much more personal.

The reviewer started by saying he's seen me at open floors:  "I have to say that her work is, generally, not to my taste and I normally wrote her off as being the “Beryl Cook of poetry”, rather in the same mould as Pam Ayres."

He liked some of my poems ("It was a pleasure, then, to hear her reading some of her more serious works") and believes me able, when pushed to "knuckle down and compose really good poetry" but I'm afraid 'tedious' 'tiresome' and 'not very original' are all in there too.

Oh, alright, read it for yourselves - I'm in the middle.

I don't mind being compared to Pam, but I'm not keen on tedious and tiresome, and I think I'm quite original. It's tricky putting together a 20min set of poetry when your style veers wildly from serious lyrical poems to romping rhymes and dreadful puns.  I like to mix it up, with something for everyone. Maybe I've got it wrong and for a proper poetry reading I should stick to serious poems?

The same reviewer raved (quite rightly) about Pauline Rowe who headlined the evening. Her poems are stunning, her delivery calm. But poetry nights where everyone does beautiful, serious poetry can be too much - too beautiful, too serious. Am I a philistine?

I like to make people think, yes, but I see myself as primarily an entertainer, an ambassador for poetry in all its guises. Also, I'd been billed by the organiser thus: "Clare Kirwan will challenge and amuse with her lively, socially engaged poetry" so I planned around that.

So although the review is a wee bit hurtful in places, I will treat it like any rejection - as a matter of personal taste. What pleases me more is that various strangers came up to me later to say how much they enjoyed my poems - each naming a different favourite. Even the girl on the door said she thought I was brilliant "...an' I wouldn't say tha' if it wasn't true, 'cos I'm a right cow."

* Ah, you don't know the saying?  The curate's egg is 'good in parts'